Großbritanniens Straßen sollen schmaler werden, um das Überholen von Radfahrern durch Autofahrer zu verhindern
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/britains-roads-drivers-cyclists-b1258284.html
Von tylerthe-theatre
Großbritanniens Straßen sollen schmaler werden, um das Überholen von Radfahrern durch Autofahrer zu verhindern
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/britains-roads-drivers-cyclists-b1258284.html
Von tylerthe-theatre
42 Kommentare
I feel like the sort of people who propose stuff like this have never driven a car in their life.
More likely because it’s less asphalt and the government can’t manage to maintain roads at their existing width.
I’d rather them just ban the giant canyonero cars that cause most of these problems.
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“Newly published government guidance says the long-standard 12ft lane width, used for nearly 150 years, is now considered unsuitable because of the safety risks it poses to cyclists.”
Anyone sensible would take this as a due to _widen_ new roads, not make them even narrower because let’s be realistic this will just make people squeeze even closer to bikes won’t it
Hope this results in pavements being widened. They’re comically narrow (or non-existent) across most of the country. Prioritise repaving them while you’re at it as they’re generally in terrible condition compared to roads.
So the article title should say „could be“ instead of „to be“, as at this stage it has just been suggested in a report.
The report also suggests they should either be reduced or widened.
With cars being much wider and bigger than they used to be, isn’t the road already narrower by default anyway?
…or, make them wider to accommodate physically segregated cycle lanes? (So, wider still than the alternative greater width the report suggests as another means of protecting cyclists.)
In my experience it doesn’t matter how narrow the roads are – some motorists will go for the overtake anyway. And a lot of cyclists lack the confidence, knowledge or awareness to take a more central position in their lane when it would be beneficial.
Safer for all concerned to have physically separate lanes where possible.
In any case I’m sure this proposal will be a valuable contribution to the level-headed, good-natured debate Britain likes to have about cycling.
Cars go faster than bicycles, they should be able to overtake, what an idiot take by an incompetent government
I feel like the law of unintended consequences is going to bite hard here with more mangled cyclists.
I am a cyclist. If anything, roads should be made wider, so cars have more room to overtake, so they’re not so close to vulnerable road users.
I used to work in roads, 3.65m (12 ft) anes are basically motorway and trunk roads only.
Most roads fall under local council guidance which tends to go to 3.25m (10ft 8 ish) or 3m (10 ft) anyway so basically nothing is changing here.
Also any paper just giving units in imperial needs to fuck right off. They’ve had 25 years to figure this out
Already happening in Oxford. All of the side roads off of the Woodstock and Banbury roads have been narrowed and cycle lanes have been widened. Signs are already up warning cars, buses etc not to overtake cyclists on the Woodstock rd.
ah the weekly lets blame cyclists for the world ills is back, i’ve missed it so much. Perhaps if 95% of the countries roads weren’t designed for anything wider that a mini or a austin allegro it might be a bit easier, but you know lets just let the car manufacturers make something the size of a tank and then worry about it.
Thank god none of us are now driving those massive 4x4s right
Will this be an *actual widespread* change to Britain’s roads, or is it simply political mischief making to cast the Labour government in a bad light??
Excellent idea to *checks notes* make roads more dangerous for everyone
Narrower lanes while all the cars are getting bigger… moronic proposal.
Great photo of the car over the line into the cycle lane.
Cyclists would be better off driving in the middle of the lane, that they are entitled to, for safety
I’ve just moved back to the UK, and I genuinely think the whole place has lost its mind
Haha what? Surely a more narrownroad would encourage some people to go over the cyclist.
There isn’t much new here that hasn’t been in government guidance since at least 2010… All it is saying is 12ft (3.65m lane width) traditional roads have an issue where poor drivers think there is enough space to attempt to overtake a cyclist completely within the lane, leaving f all space for the cyclist. All good drivers know to wait for a gap and deviate into the opposite lane when safe, to do a proper overtake and give the cyclist enough space. But poorer driving standards and bigger cars are making this an issue.
What they want from new roads is either leave the lane narrow so that drivers know they need to do a proper overtake in the opposite lane when safe, or make the lane wide enough that there is enough space to pass in the lane… or yes make sure there is a cycle lane or separate path.
It’s all common sense here for good drivers, and drawing any other conclusions from this is just moral panic and the press stirring the pot…
I was hit by a car trying to overtake me on a roundabout lane which I had right of way and was in the correct spot (according to witnesses and police, my own cycling memory is fuzzy).
I used the pavement to avoid that part now and the police stopped me and told me to use the road /roundabout again.
People will still overtake so all you are doing is endangering cyclists further with this.
The money should be spent getting cyclists away from cars wherever possible to reduce risk
Surely the time has come to separate cyclists from motor vehicles. Rather than slowing everyone down and probably causing accidents separate active travel lanes should be created, and cyclists banned from the highway. This isn’t going to achieved overnight but over the long term the benefits will become clear. Obviously a lot of urban roads don’t lend themselves to this but vehicles shouldn’t be speeding on such roads anyway.
Genuinely believe there’s a secret society within the government who look for ways to make things worse for everyone.
Oh yeah, this will entirely stop this yeah… Don’t smoke crack and run planning sessions kids.
Narrow them but put dedicated off road cycle paths in. Round my way they’ve done this and everybody’s safer for it (apart from the odd muppet who still cycles on the road despite having a multi-million pound bespoke cycle lane put in).
We have narrower roads on the new estate we live in. Ostensibly, it’s to be a traffic calming measure, although I’d imagine it’s because the developer realised shaving the width of each road means they can put an entire street’s worth of houses in from the savings. All it’s done is mean when people park on the road it’s difficult turning circle to get off the driveway, and people will park half mounted on the pavements/entirely on grass verges. There’s also been multiple incidents of some absolute smooth brains parking directly ‘opposite’ each other on the road and literally blocking the whole thing
Car manufacturers have already achieved this by making cars so wide. It used to be possible to get bike-car-car on a normal road in a safe manner, but since everyone is driving obese SUVs with poor sightlines and a foot of extra width now, it isn’t any more.
We need legislation to target that, either regulating the maximum width of cars (i.e. vehicles you can drive on a normal licence), or taking it into account in the VED calculation so there is a price pressure for narrower cars.
On the contrary, roads need to segregate cycle lanes where possible, and perhaps update road laws to mandate cyclists should use cycle lanes where available, and yet I do read (mainly nimbys and constant cynicists on fb) how every time cycle lanes are added, that it’s a war on drivers. This is a better alternative to what is suggested.
Even if roads are narrowed, you’ll then end up needing to put double yellows down on some roads, so they’re not congested with cars trying to navigate dealing with pulling in and out to get through cars.
I don’t drive but I, as a pedestrian, am also annoyed by cyclists cycling on pavements.
Amazing how much some roads aren’t suited to either. But I don’t see this as a solution. Especially when cars are also growing in size (SUVs are more common, and I’m seeing pickups), unless we then also decide to impose a max car size.
This is just made up bollixks like everything in the past few months isn’t it?
I’m gonna assume the headline doesn’t accurately describe the situation because I’m a responsible user of the internet.
Where I live is quite a dangerous bendy main road and the council recently spent a fortune improving the cycle path and making it good. There are cyclists who still use the road where a great line of cars have to crawl behind because there’s not many places to overtake. Most annoying when you just want to get home from work.
Absolutely stupid. Roads need to be made wider to facilitate a segregated cycle lane. It is safer for cyclists and motorists for segregation. Noone sane will be cycling on narrow roads when they can just be run over.
Ironically American roads are much safer for cyclists, far wider and in better condition often as they use concrete rather than asphalt. But Americans don’t cycle as cities are stupidly designed.
So we’ll just sit behind them at 15(?) mph and cause traffic jams? Sounds great for the environment
Or, you know, WIDEN them, and install dedicated cycle lanes?!
Please READ THE ARTICLE. The headline is misleading.
„Under the rules, lanes on local roads should either be reduced to no more than 10ft 8in or widened to at least 12ft 10in“
Honestly I think cyclists need to be as considerate as drivers.
If you’ve got a queue of drivers waiting cause they can’t overtake, pull over and then keep going.
After all tractors to do it
What an absolutely insane idea. It almost feels made up, like something from The Day Today.
And how much is this bollocks going to cost the tax payer? I think we have far more important problems to worry about just now tbh.
When I was in the emergency services they put up loads of soft bollards along the edge of the road to artificially narrow it and create a cycle lane (you know the ones I mean).
It turned a key arterial road we used to get to calls into a nightmare (it led directly from the station to a major hospital and urban centre). It would take 10 minutes on blues to get down a stretch of road that before would take up to 2 max, if not under a minute. There just wasn’t enough physical space to make it work, and other drivers were (understandably) nervous about slotting in between the bollards for us.
When you’re trying to attend an urgent call where someone is hurt or it’s all kicking off, it’s deeply frustrating and significantly impacted our response time. And we drove cars and small vans, god help the ambulances and fire engines when they had to go through.
(Also they were ugly AF)